Pages

Thursday, August 12, 2010

The fallback for Houston's Triple-A affiliate just narrowed by one

Baseball America tweeted that the New Orleans Zephyrs and the Florida Marlins just extended their Player Development Contract.

Oklahoma City and Albuquerque are the two Pacific Coat League cities with PDCs expiring at the end of this season, though the Constable has candles burning 24 hours a day that they'll move to Nashville. However, I'm intrigued by one Citizen's theory (I can't remember who it was) that the Astros could turn San Antonio into their Triple-A affiliate.

Two things: If SA were to go to AAA, another affiliate for AA would have to be found in the Texas League area. The biggest issue I think would be SA's stadium, it is no where near AAA in size unless they planned a new addition.

Wolff Stadium in S.A. was a blast to play at. I had the opportunity to play there in High School playoffs but haven't seen it in 12 years or so. At the time it was a big stadium and seemed equivalent to Round Rock but probably expansion is needed. Great stadium though, wished we would have played there in college but no dice.

There's no way SA jumps to AAA next year. The stadium is old and small. One of those is fixable, but not both, in such a short time span. Further, they were second to last in attendance last year (only barely, to Midland). Probably a correlation there, but whatever.

Corpus, with a 50% attendance increase over SA, is more likely to jump to AAA. In fact, last year Corpus drew more fans than SA in its highest year in the TL (1994). They also draw more per year than OKC does, and are second only to Frisco in the TL. But that'll never happen, for several reasons, so we can forget about that.

There's also no way OKC drops to AA. They have WAY too big and nice of a stadium. Shockingly, Albuquerque has one of the highest attendance figures in all of MiLB. Except for the fact that it's out in the middle of nowhere (and a long way away), that might not be a bad way to go. (Oh, and the altitude... may not be good for hitters swings or pitchers egos, but whatever.)

The 'Stros really should have looked into converting Double A teams to Triple A a whole lot sooner! Oklahoma City would not make any sense to us, as it's 7 hours away from H-Town. This is just depressing. The Austin-Round Rock area will always be Astros Country, or in this case, Astros County!

About Astros County

Established in 2008, Astros County is your friendly neighborhood blog & grill. We are the Protectors of the Legacy of Dickie Thon, Defenders of the Honor of J.R. Richard, and Anti-American League. Orlando Palmeiro Was Safe.